Monday Medley: Embrace Personal Creativity

 Illustration by Arkeyytones on Unsplash

 Illustration by Hanin Abouzeid on Unsplash

          

            

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The summer months offer an ideal opportunity to focus on hobbies and explore personal creativity.

Here is a guide to some free resources available for crafting, making, and learning new skills.

Online Craft & Video Classes: 

• Creativebug (via BPL)                                                                                                            

"By signing up for Creativebug you'll enjoy unlimited access to thousands of online art and craft classes. Watch our classes anytime, anywhere. Since our classes never expire, you can start and stop projects at your own pace. No pressure, just possibilities!"

This resource requires you to register an account so you may save and continue your progress. Use your Boston Public Library eCard to get started. Don't have a card yet? Sign up for a BPL eCard.  

Classes include: 
Baking, cake decorating, and seasonal home decor.
Sewing, quilting, knitting, crochet, and embroidery.
Painting, drawing, ceramics, furniture refinishing, and upholstery.
Creativebug also offers classes for kids and teens.

Get exclusive access to craft patterns and printables, recipes and more.  

• Kanopy (via BPL)      

         Explore The Great Courses and level up your skills.

Topics include painting, photography, baking pastries and desserts, writng great fiction, fundamentals of furniture making, yoga for a healthy mind and body, how to play piano, learning to play guitar, do-it-yourself engineering and more. 

This resource requires you to register an account. Use your Boston Public Library eCard to get started. Don't have a card yet? Sign up for a BPL eCard.

Each month BPL patrons receive 18 tickets. Depending on the length and viewing period of each title, movies in Kanopy will require between 0-5 tickets per viewing. You can see your remaining tickets for the month in the top-right corner of the homepage.

Digital Magazines: 

Do you prefer to quickly browse through content to get inspiration? Get access to free digital magazines from these sources. 

• Sora has a large collection of "Always Available" digital magazines including: 

Art
Astronomy
Baking
Cooking
Crafts
Gardening
Nature
Photography

Access additional magazines from: 

• Flipster (Free with a BPL eCard)

Food & Cooking
Hobbies, Interests, & DIY

Home & Garden

Nature & Outdoors

• OverDrive (Free with a BPL eCard)

Art & Architecture

Crafts

Food & Wine

Health & Fitness

Home & Garden

Photography

Travel & Outdoor

• PressReader (Free with a BPL eCard)

Animals & Pets

Art

Crafts & Hobbies

Design

Food & Drinks

Health & Fitness

Home & Garden

Outdoors

Photography

Travel & Culture

Monday Medley: Something Different for Summer Time

It's almost time to trade lesson plans for personal passions. Before you shut down your laptop and head out for the summer, don't forget to pack your ultimate digital beach bag: free access to Sora, Feature Films for Education, Kanopy, Biblio+, and Comics Plus for all your vacation reading, movie marathons, and passion projects!

Photo by Jessica Hearn on Unsplash

 

Monday Medley: America's 250th, Mental Health Awareness Month, and Professional Titles for Educators

 May happenings in the NRHS Media Center

• In preparation for America's 250th birthday, The Massachusetts Center for the Book (the same organization that sponsors the monthly Massachusetts Reading Challenge for adults) and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners has published a multipart reading list titled Reading the Revolution. The reading lists feature recommendations from libraries across the Commonwealth and are now available at massbook.org/ma250. Stop by the Media Ctr later this week and check out our display of titles celebrating "250 Years of Incendiary and Inspiring Books from the Bay State and Beyond"

• May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the Media Center has a display of books and handouts available to support student mental health and well being. In addition, the Media Center Website has a page dedicated to Mental Health and Self-Care Resources

• Did you know that the Media Center has a collection of professional titles for educators? These titles are located near the HS office entrance to the Media Ctr.  

 Interested in learning more about any of these featured titles? Search the NRHS Media Center Catalog

Monday Medley: Helping to Reduce Stress and Anxiety

9th Grade Students have been "shopping" for resources during their PowerBlock Media Literacy Seminar session this month in the Media Center. The goal has been to encourage them to explore resources that will help them ace mid-year exams and support personal interests. (Before shopping they are signing up for a Boston Public Library eCard.) Don't have a card of your own yet? Sign up for a BPL eCard today!  You may be interested in using some of these resources yourself or sharing them with students.

 One of the stations students can choose to visit is:

🎧The Vibe Check (Music & Mental Health)

The Vibe: Reset your brain and stop the January panic. Ad-Free Music and mindfulness for the midyear grind.   

• Teen Health & Wellness Main Site (User: northreadinghs / Pass: hornets)

Access teen-friendly articles on topics including diseases, drugs and alcohol, nutrition, mental health and more. Material contained in this database is valuable for teens in middle and high school, parents and educators. 

 

• Headspace via BPL (BPL eCard + Individual Account Needed-free)

Experience the benefits of meditation through guided meditations, animations, articles, and videos. The BPL has a limited number of licenses to assign to BPL cardholders. Licenses expire on the 1st of each calendar month, but you may return here to obtain a new license.

 

• Freegal Music (BPL eCard Required)

Freegal Music is a free music streaming and download application. It offers access to millions of songs from a wide variety of artists and genres. Explore more than 20 million songs across every genre, create and share playlists to discover new favorites, and download three free songs every week to add to your permanent collection.

• Biblio+ (BPL eCard + Account Needed)

biblio+ is a streaming service with a highly-curated selection of films and television, from award-winners and nominees to independent discoveries, thoughtful documentaries, and everything in between. With biblio+, library members have unlimited access to an ad-free catalog of video content on many devices. While this is primarily a film and television service there is an entire page of Music, Study, and Relaxation videos.

• The Teen Health & Wellness Database Calm Room                     (User: northreadinghs / Pass: hornets)

 "It's a place to relax, recharge, and refocus. This collection of nature videos, sounds and music, animal cams, and more provides a calming space for quick, mindful breaks to manage emotions and reduce stress and anxiety." 

2026 Reading Challenge

Happy 2026!

Did you make any resolutions for the new year? 
It's not too late to make a resolution to read more! 

The North Reading High School Media Center is a proud 2026 partner of the Massachusetts Center for the Book statewide reading challenge. I would like to encourage you to participate. If you are a classroom teacher or work with NRHS students in any capacity it would be awesome if you could encourage them to read as well. 

How it works: 

• During the next 12 months, participants (You and your students) read 1 title each month that fits the monthly challenge. 

• After reading a book, fill out this form and summarize the book. 

Print titles, Audiobooks, and eBooks all count as reading! Everyone in the NRHS community can access Sora for eBook and Audiobook content.

• Each month 2 names will be drawn on the last day of the month to win a free book. To qualify, be sure to submit the form before the end of the month. 

• In addition, participants who read a book in each of the 12 months will be entered in a drawing to win 1 of 2 totes filled with books.

Here is the January title category: 

Not sure what to read? Stop by the Media Center and check out the "Sweater Weather" display for some inspiration.

Additional Suggestions for January:

The Educator's News Vault: Free Access to News Databases, US & Global Papers, Plus Magazines like Newsweek

 

Photo by Hümâ H. Yardım on Unsplash

The Media Center subscribes to a number of databases that provide up-to-date access to reliable sources for news and current events. Among these is Infobase's Issues & Controversies, "a multimedia solution that helps students understand contemporary issues, assess different perspectives, distinguish fact from opinion, reach their own conclusions, and build critical thinking and writing skills. It features balanced pro/con articles and primary sources for current events, civics instruction, and class discussion."

Another database from Infobase is World News Digest, offering "350,000+ original articles dating back to 1940, breaking news stories from Reuters, thousands of videos from trusted sources, and other multimedia collections—all ideal for research, critical thinking, and connecting past and present events."

Infobase's Today’s Science features thousands of original articles written by scientists and science journalists in easy-to-understand language, based on the most current peer-reviewed journal articles. The in-depth coverage spans important advances in biology, chemistry, health, environmental science, space, physics, and technology. 

In addition, this school year, we’ve partnered with The Atlantic  to provide unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, scholarly resources, and games for the entire North Reading High School community.  "Since 1857, The Atlantic has been a magazine of ideas, aiming to help readers better understand the world in all its complexity. Our free subscription includes unlimited reading online, narrated articles and podcasts, games, and more." This access is only available on school WiFi, but articles can be printed out to read anywhere!

But wait...there's more! Did you know that you and your students have the ability to view full text newspapers and magazines from around the world with a free BPL eCard and an account with Pressreader? 

Sometimes when discussing a current news event it's helpful to see how the world is reporting the event. Here is an example of some global news coverage reporting the passing of Jane Goodall last week.

Some additional news and current event related titles available via Pressreader include:

The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, El Economista (espanol). EuroNews (francais), Foreign Affairs, The Guardian (USA), The New York Times, Newsweek, El Pais (espanol), Le Pointe (francais), USA Today

Even more content is available via Sora, and PressReader. Please connect with me to learn more. 

Educational Videos and Full-Length Films

Photo by Tech Daily on Unsplash

The Media Center offers a variety of subscriptions to seamlessly integrate both video clips and full-length films into your teaching repertoire. These resources are available to support and enhance your curriculum with dynamic video content. Two additional resources are available for free with a Boston Public Library eCard.

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Classroom Video On Demand's Master Curriculum Video Collection serves the specific needs of students who are preparing for college by providing top-quality video across the entire secondary curriculum, including life skills and guidance.

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Feature Films for Education  “...offers hundreds of full-length feature films for educational instructional purposes. Brought to you in partnership with Global Eagle, this outstanding collection focuses on both current and hard-to-find titles, including dramas, literary adaptations, blockbusters, classics, science fiction, environmental titles, foreign films, social issues, animation studies, Academy Award® winners, and more."

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Swank Motion Pictures’ film streaming platform, Swank K-12 Streaming, offers exclusive access to the largest single library of feature films, documentaries and foreign films available to K-12 schools for instructional support.